TV Shows Don't End Well

Okay, there are rare exceptions. And no, I'm not talking about endings where everyone dies or is miserable.

I'm talking about the fact that TV writers don't appear to be trained on how to write endings.

This is unsurprising. In the past, shows tended to run until the ratings dropped below a critical level and then be promptly canceled without warning - resulting in things like Angel ending on a cliffhanger. In older episodic shows such as Star Trek endings didn't really matter.

Babylon 5 changed a lot of that. The realization that people actually like a show's arc to, ya know, end has slowly drifted through television. Now, it is starting to be common for a show to be canceled a season in advance, sometimes even if ratings are still strong. The idea is to let the writers end the show.

The problem is, a lot of them don't know how. The most recent example is Gotham.

The Batman prequel show started out as a police procedural that happened to be set in the DC universe and slowly moved from there into a true prequel. (I do wish they had not done No Man's Land, though, my second least favorite Batman arc after the infamous Killing Joke, which they also managed to touch on).

Because they had warning, they were able to bring it to a planned ending. Spoilers follow:

The show ends with the announcement that Jim Gordon and Barbara Keene's daughter will, indeed, be named Barbara Gordon, the future Batgirl. Riddler and Penguin end their ambiguous relationship in Arkham, where they belong. Bruce goes off to travel the world and learn how to be Batman. Jim Gordon is promoted to Commissioner.

It's a fine ending for a prequel. We know what happens next. We know Selina Kyle is going to become a world class thief. We know that Riddler and Penguin will escape from Arkham and try to take over Gotham's Underworld. We know the Joker will also escape from Arkham.

So.

They did an entire last episode telling us all of that.

It was a completely unnecessary and frankly boring epilogue to the show. It insulted the fans who already knew what was going to happen and I doubt it added much for those who were less familiar. (Oh, and we didn't need Barbara Keene with Barbara Gordon's comic hair either. Pleaaaase).

The only thing I can think of is that they literally messed up their timing and the network told them they had to do X episodes...

Can we teach TV writers about endings? (Heck, can we teach writers about endings? I don't always get them right myself). Please?